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When He Was Young

In a career dotted with curious projects, Neil Young's "A Letter Home" (Reprise) stands out as particularly peculiar. It's an album of covers mostly from his young-adult years—the newest song is "My Hometown," released by Bruce Springsteen three decades ago. Mr. Young, 68, made the record in Nashville using Jack White's 1947 Voice-o-Graph, the kind of technology that could be found in mid-20th-century direct-to-disc booths in arcades, department stores and other public forums where anyone could cut a record...